Replacing Melo with Chandler and/or Gallinari only would cost the Nuggets about two wins this season. So yes, this is a small step back. But it appears rather small.

Felton offers less than Billups, but again…. Billups is old (34 years old). Felton gives the Nuggets a player who is a bit less productive, but eight years younger.

Who is going to play small forward for this team? The team now has Chandler, Gallinari, and Gary Forbes. Plus, J.R. Smith and/or Aaron Afflalo appear to have swung to the small forward spot this year. Not real clear how those minutes get allocated.

The Nuggets now have three above average big men (Nene Hilario, Chris Andersen, and Kenyon Martin) and three big men who produce in the negative range (Al Harrington, Melvin Ely, and Mozgov). Interesting to see how those minutes get allocated.

In sum, it is not clear who is going to play for Denver. It is possible to come up with a line-up where this trade doesn’t really hurt Denver that much. But it is possible for this trade to really hurt, especially if Mozgov – the player they supposedly insisted upon – actually plays.

To summarize, when the trade happened I thought it was possible that Denver would still be about as good. But since it was unclear how minutes were going to be allocated, it was unclear how this trade was going to impact the team.

Denver has now played seven games since Melo departed. In those seven games, Denver is 5-2. The team’s efficiency differential in those seven games is 10.4, a mark consistent with a team that would win more than 65 games across an 82 game season. With Melo the team’s efficiency differential was only 2.5, a mark consistent with a team that would win about 47 games across an 82 game season. So clearly, losing Melo has made the Nuggets much, much better.

Okay, it has only been seven games. We really can’t offer an evaluation of this trade that is based on such a small sample. But what we can do is see how minutes have been allocated by the Nuggets.

As noted, we didn’t know how minutes would be allocated before the trade (or at least, I didn’t know). Now that we can see minutes played, we can go back to what we knew about player performance before the trade and project the impact of this move. The following table details this analysis.

On the left we have how these players have performed in the seven games since Melo left. Again, the team has an efficiency differential of 10.4. So it is not surprising to see WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] marks that are quite good for many players employed by the Nuggets. So far, ten players (of the 13 employed) are posting above average marks (average is 0.100) since the trade. And six players are beyond the 0.200 mark. Obviously if this could be sustained, the Nuggets would be an amazing team. Once again, though, seven games isn’t much of a sample.

So let’s examine this trade with the performances of the players in 2010-11 before the trade. This analysis is presented on the right. And as one can see, eight of these players were above average before the trade happened. So Denver has some “good” players. But none of these players exceeded the 0.200 mark (although Nene was close). So this team, given performance before the trade and the minutes allocation after Melo left town, could expect to be about a 50 win team. Now before the trade the team was only a 47 win team. So the Nuggets – with and without Melo – are about the same.

Of course, that fits the general story that Carmelo Anthony is not really a “star”. Yes, he is an above average player. But he is not LeBron James (or even close). Again, Melo does score a large number of points. However – as is often noted – this is because he “takes” a large number of shots.

And I want to emphasize the word “takes.” Some people argue that shots are “created”. But I think that is not the correct way to look at it. The Nuggets averaged 80.0 field goal attempts before the trade. The team has averaged 82.9 field goal attempts after the trade. As we note in Stumbling on Wins, a player’s shot attempts tend to come at the expense of his teammates. In other words, players tend to “take” shots from their teammates. And when players like Melo depart, other players get to take those shots.

Let me close with two more observations…

First, there isn’t much of a link between shot attempts and shooting efficiency (at least, not in the sample of 30 years of player data we looked at in Stumbling on Wins). Yes, it could be the case that if Nene Hilario suddenly took 30 shots a game he would be less efficient. But this isn’t what happens when a player like Melo departs. What happens is every player just takes a few more shots per game. And I don’t expect small changes in shot attempts to have large impacts on shooting efficiency.

Once again, I don’t expect what we have seen from the Nuggets after seven games to continue. But, if Harrington can stay on the bench — and the players who have offered above average production in the past continue to produce — the Nuggets can still be a playoff team. Again, that is about what they were before Anthony departed. And that means the Nuggets were not exactly the “loser” in this trade.

16 Responses to "How Good are the Nuggets Without Carmelo"

Carmelo Anthony hit a game winning shot yesterday, so your entire argument is negated. Obviously you don’t watch the games because you’d see that Denver is suffering mightily without Carmelo Anthony. Yea, they have a higher point differential, but the shots that melo created are no longer created. They are simply taken. Denver has a lot of shot takers, but not a single shot creator. So when the shot clock runs out, someone like Ty Lawson or Arron Afflalo shoots the ball, but no one creates it.

@ EntityAbyss,
You obviously missed the the foul he caused which almost led to their loss. That and the shot he missed prior to the foul. Nonetheless, it doesn’t make sense to base a game’s performance on a single event. Anthony did have a decent game. Cumulatively however, he has been below average with his time as a knickerbocker.

Great post, I really love this new Nuggets team. They have 2 above average players at every position except the 5, and they’re all the kind of unselfish, efficient players that mainstream NBA analysts don’t expect to win a lot of games because they don’t have a “shot creator”.
On a related note, I was wondering your opinion of Danilo Gallinari. He’s posting below average WP48, but isn’t that because he’s played at PF? He’s much too poor of a rebounder for the 4, but does he become an above average win-producer if he’s played exclusively on the wing?

1. I would raise expectations for Mozgov slightly. I don’t know if he’ll ever be a productive player, but he was absolutely horrific early in the season when he was rushed into the starting line up. He was benched for a couple of months and when he came back he was much more relaxed. He has played better ever since. He’s not quite as bad as he looks.

2. I think you have Gallinari listed as a PF based on the Wins Produced. I’m not sure what position he’ll play for Denver, but I assume he’ll be a SF most of the time.

I like the Knuggets, but I think they are going to have a difficult time keeping all these players happy (especially Lawson/Felton). They also obviously made a huge error signing Harrington to such a long deal. They understand that now, but it’s going to be extremely difficult to move him.

No matter how you slice it the Knuggets did well on “this” deal.

They were in an almost impossible situation, but turned into a few solid players with upside, cap space, and didn’t lose much in terms of wins currently. IMHO, the longer we look at this trade, the smarter the Knuggets are going to look. As for the Knicks and their fans, that won’t matter. They will still think that got a superstar and will blame “whoever” when they can’t build a championship team having given up all their upside and cap space for an overrated players.

The Nuggets’ payroll next season is $40M for almost every player (except JR Smits) on a 50-win team. If they resign Nene and can add a .200 or .300 player (for example, if Philly decides to blow up their team, they could absorb Iggy’s entire contract under the salary cap or if Atlanta is serious about shipping out Josh smith), they’d close in on 60 wins.

This could be one of the best summers EVER to be a team with lots of cap space, because there aren’t many overpriced scorers. A terrible team like Sacramento with a core of near average young players (Evans, Garcia, Casspi, Thornton, Udrih, head, maybe Cousins next year) and only $27M in salaries could be a championship contender with very shrewd WoW management, though they’ll no doubt screw it up.

I looked over the list of players that are free agents this summer (who are reasonably available, hence the exclusion of Duncan), and there’s an obscene number of players who have played near a .200 level or better in the last couple of years who will available (all of whom can be signed for an annual salary of between $1M and $10M).

Fields is a great role player on a run and gun team with no rebounders but on a team looking to build around someone who can create their own offense and offense for others, Danilo is the obvious choice.

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